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Owner of PageF30.com.
Translator of Demian by Hermann Hesse into English - an interlinear translation for German students and those who want to see the original text.
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/mithradates
Fluent in Japanese, Korean. Proficient in Mandarin, Turkish, German, French, Portuguese, others.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Take a look at this short clip from an interesting interview from 1988 with Isaac Asimov on the future of education. It also happens to have Spanish subtitles, which I typed out and pasted below in case anyone wants to compare the two. The translation is off in a few places and the Spanish itself seems to have been a bit lazily typed up (porqué for por qué is one example), so if anyone sees other areas that need correcting that I missed then leave a comment below and I'll do so.

As for Nate Silver - he's the owner of fivethirtyeight.com. Started out with baseball, went on to other things.

Once we have outlets, computer outlets in every home
Una vez que tengamos sistemas - de computadoras - en cada hogar

each of them hooked up to enormous libraries
cada una de ellas "colgadas" a enormes bibliotecas

Well, in the old days, you used to have tutors for children
Bueno, en los viejos tiempos, habían tutores para los niños

A person who could afford it could hire a pedagog,
Una persona que pudiera afrontarlo, podía contratar a un consejero,

a tutor,
un tutor,

and he would teach the children and if he knew his job,
y él le enseñaría a ese niño el conocimiento de su trabajo,

he could adapt his teaching to the taste and abilities of the students, you see.
podía adaptar su enseñanza al gusto y las habilidades de los niños, usted verá.

But how many people could afford to hire a pedagog?
Pero ¿cuántas personas podrían afrontar o contratar un profesor?

Most children went uneducated,
La mayoría de los niños eran analfabetos,

then we reached the point where it was absolutely necessary to educate everybody.
luego llegamos a un punto en el que fue absolutamente necesario educar a todos.

The only way we could do it
La única manera que había para hacer esto

is to have one teacher for a great many students,
era utilizando un sólo profesor para una gran cantidad de estudiantes,

and in order to organize the situation properly,
y para poder organizar la situación propiciamente,

we gave them a curriculum to teach from
les dimos un plan de estudios del cual enseñar

So...how many teachers are good at this too?
Entonces...¿cuántos profesores son buenos haciendo eso?

Like in everything else, the number of teachers is far greater than the number of good teachers.
Es como que, en todo lo demás, el número de profesores malos es considerablemente superior a la cantidad de buenos profesores.

So...we either have a one to one relationship to the very few
Entonces...tenemos una relación de uno a uno para los menos

or a one to many relationship for the many.
y una relación de uno a muchos para la mayoría.

Now, there's a possibility of a one to one relationship for the many.
Ahora, tenemos la posibilidad de una relación de uno a uno para la mayoría.

Everyone can have a teacher in the form of access to the gathered knowledge of the human species.
Todos pueden tener un profesor en la forma de acceso al vasto conocimiento de la especie Humana.

Through the libraries that are connected to the computer -
A través de las bibliotecas que están conectadas a la computadora -

That's right.
Exactamente.

...on my desk, in my home?
¿...en mi escritorio, en mi casa?

Right.
Correcto.

I can sit there and call up...well, what if I want to learn only about baseball?
Me puedo sentar ahí y "llamar" ... bueno... qué pasa si yo sólo quiero aprender sobre béisbol?